Graham: Presidential campaign will turn on the economy

9/23/12 9:14 AM EDT

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham said on Sunday the campaign President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney is being distracted by gaffes, and at the end of the day, the election will turn solely on the economy.

Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Graham said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) doesn’t owe Romney an apology for his accusation that the Republican never paid income taxes, chalking it up to a political distraction.

“No I think all this stuff is just political fodder,” Graham said. “Nobody’s going to vote based on Mitt Romney’s tax return. He gave 30 percent of what he earned away. He’s a lot more generous than I am. I don’t know about the rest of y’all two I’m sort of amazed by the generosity of the Romneys. He has paid his taxes lawfully. The bottom line is its not going to be about the speech that he gave at campaign fundraiser, and quite frankly, it’s not going to be about a 14-year-old comment that President Obama made about redistribution. It’s going to be about you, your family.”